Yusuke Kobayashi, the voice actor for Subaru Natsuki in ReZero, was the star of the anime’s featured day stage panel at Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2024 (AFA SG) on November 30, 2024.
The Japanese light novel series ReZero: Starting Life in Another World, penned by Tappei Nagatsuki and featuring illustrations by Shinichirou Otsuka, enjoys significant popularity.
The series originated as a web novel in 2012, earning substantial popularity. It was later published in print in 2014, with the release of a manga adaptation in the same year.
The popularity of the light novel and manga led to an anime adaptation. The first season premiered in 2016, with the second season airing in 2020, and the third season launching in 2024, which Kobayashi was in Singapore to promote.
Understanding ReZero’s Narrative
The plot of ReZero revolves around Subaru Natsuki, a typical Japanese teenager who finds himself transported to a different world during a shopping trip. In this unfamiliar world, he realizes that he has a unique power known as “Return by Death.”
This power enables Subaru to come back to life at a specific save point each time he dies. This ability gives him the opportunity to experiment with different tactics to surmount obstacles. However, the emotional toll of constantly experiencing death and defeat is high.
In this peculiar world, Subaru encounters a half-elf named Emilia and pledges to protect her. They encounter numerous perils and unravel the mysteries of their new world together.
The third season depicts Subaru and his comrades encountering new obstacles and adversaries like the Witch Cult and the Sin Archbishops.
Insights from Yusuke Kobayashi, Subaru’s Voice Actor
Kobayashi auditioned for both Subaru and another character, Reinhard van Astrea. He confessed that the motive to audition for Reinhard was due to his record of playing “princely” characters whom he thought suited the Reinhard’s character.
Subaru, being the first lead character that Kobayashi had to really sink his teeth into, presented an interesting dynamic. “Subaru is always at the receiving end of a beating whereas Reinhard is mostly delivering them. So during Subaru’s audition, I tried to act as though I was under attack,” he confided.
“There were three elongated scenes. One was when Subaru was in quarrel with Emilia. The second was where he was resting on Emilia’s lap.” Kobayashi further recollected, each audition scene was approximately six paragraphs long, which proved exhausting.
“After feeling a slight lack of breath, I then did the actual recording every week. Subaru dies in every episode. There are a lot of varied ways Subaru dies in each episode, so I had to devise different methods to depict how he feels in each of the death scenes,” said Kobayashi, adding more insight into his craft.
Kobayashi revealed that when Subaru’s left arm gets severed near the heart, he portrays restricted breathing to imitate the heavy blood loss, while when Subaru’s legs are cut, he depicts heavy breathing as the overall blood circulation in the body remains the same.
Kobayashi shared that he always strives to depict Subaru’s pain every time he nears death. “After I’m done recording, I usually collapse as if I’ve died. This often leads to other voice actors asking me if I need candy or water out of concern.”
Interestingly, Kobayashi intentionally refrains from reading the light novel prior to the recordings so as to keep upcoming plot surprises intact, believing this method was the best way to play Subaru — discovering the story’s twists and turns as they unfold, just like Subaru.
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